As readers know, I’m doing some work on the votegreengov.org campaign in addition to my regular blogging at GMD. Even if I wasn’t, though, I’d highlight this. It’s the very cool Vermont LCV app for iphone and droid. Here’s the download link from itunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vermont-league-conservation/id394313927?mt=8.
Wish I had a smart phone 🙁
Visit votegreengov.org and take the pledge to vote green in 2010!
Fun with the A/V software…
I’m just curious: wit this music, is he attempting to win over the people who were on Darth Vader’s side? ‘Cause that’s the vibe I get.
The number of fans he has on Facebook is a very compelling argument. Oh, and donors in every county. That means he’s managed to fully sweep all of Vermont’s 14 Counties. Way to step up. Oh, and I love the red background when the words “red tape” appear on the screen. Subtle.
There’s a foolish, foolish thing that Peter Shumlin has continued to do in debates; lament the fact that everyone thinks he’s “slick.” His pitch goes something to the effect of I’m not slick, I’m an overcompensating dyslexic, but all it does is reinforce putting the words “Shumlin” and “slick” into the same part of people’s minds. This is Shumlin breaking the first rule of Campaign Psy Ops 101 – if your opponent beats a drum that resonates in the back of people’s minds, don’t add to it.
Well, Brian Dubie has taken Shumlin’s annoying goof and made his own full blown act of Seppuku out of the same sort of thinking. His latest ad hits back at Peter Shumlin on the issue of abortion rights – an issue that Dubie is supremely vulnerable on – with a parade of actresses women indentifying themselves as pro-choice Dubie voters.
Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. This ad guarantees once and for all the choice is the new big issue of the last stage of the campaign, and no two ways about it, choice is a loser for Dubie. In this – as with the nasty slash-and-burn campaign – Dubie becomes his own worst enemy.
But what’s better is the question of why Dubie would do something so foolish. Short of a total brain trust meltdown, the only answer can be that it’s an act of desperation – that despite the issue’s low resonance in recent polling, their own internal polls must be telling them they are losing women’s votes over this issue in the waning days, and they felt they had to do something to staunch the bleeding.
Wishful thinking? Maybe, but I don’t think so.
(Crossposted from Huffington Post… )
Vermont has a population of 620,000. Of that, roughly 260,000 are expected to turn out to vote on Election Day.
The combined population of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut is 11,300,000, quite a bit more than 260,000, and yet those 260,000 are about to make a decision that could have tremendous impact on the lives of those other eleven-plus million.
One of the major issues on the campaign trail in Vermont is the relicensing of the state’s aging and dangerous nuclear reactor, Entergy Corporation’s Vermont Yankee plant. The problems with this plant have been documented at the Huffington Post in the past, such as in this piece from Vermonter Charlotte Dennett. The plant is quite old, has been beset with problems (including multiple leaks of radioactivity — most notably a sustained leaking of radioactive tritium into the ground, the source of which took weeks to determine), is routinely pushed to produce energy beyond its originally intended capacity, and has also frequently had that production dialed back or completely halted to deal with safety or functional concerns. This is why a recent poll indicated that 44% of Vermonters want the plant shut down, compared to 39% that want it to stay open. 17% were undecided.
Since that time of that previous posting from Dennett, the plant has been found to be leaking again. Radioactive steam has been seeping from a pipe that is part the plant’s emergency cooling system. This is in addition to recent revelations that the tritium which was found to be leaking some time ago has hit at least one drinking water well, despite assurances that this wouldn’t happen. These assurances, of course, came from the Entergy Corporation, which previously couldn’t find the leak, and which turned out to be coming from pipes which a spokesman had testified before the legislature didn’t even exist.
The track record on transparency and honesty from the Entergy Corporation is not good.
The plant was only meant to function for 40 years (an expiration date now coming due), and the push is on from the corporation and its political allies to relicense the plant for another 20, which would be unprecedented. This push comes despite its history of leaks, dramatic structural collapses, and even a fire, along with other mishaps and embarrassments.
And despite its location: right on the Connecticut River, roughly where the borders of Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts meet. Just upriver from Connecticut.
This puts the citizens of those other three states subject to the mood of the Vermont electorate this coming Election Day.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is, of course, supposed to preside over a regulatory regime for plants such as Yankee which — as a federal agency representing all Americans — is theoretically the great equalizer from on high. But as anyone active in these issues can tell you, their record of enforcement is lousy. In addition, the Obama administration has made a renewed federal commitment to nuclear power as part of the national energy portfolio and has already seemed loathe to meaningfully engage in any regulation that could negatively impact public support for such an expansion of the industry.
All of which is to say that the matter of the fate of this plant in the hands of Vermont lawmakers — and ultimately, with an election approaching, that puts it in the hands of Vermont voters. The Vermont legislature has granted itself authority on the relicensing question, and a vote by the state Senate earlier in the year has put a stumbling block in Entergy’s way — at least for now. But the fact is that votes can be re-held, and the issue is a controversial one within the legislature, and between the two major party candidates for Governor; Republican Brian Dubie supports relicensing, Democrat Peter Shumlin does not.
But the fact is that nature abhors a vacuum, and the NRC’s historic refusal to live up to its regulatory responsibility has created a regulatory and political vacuum.
So, whether they realize it or not, 260,000 voters in Vermont are filling that vacuum. They are about to make a decision that could prove to have an impact on the health and livelihood of many of New Hampshire’s, Massachusetts’, and downriver Connecticut’s citizens — and by extension could financially impact all those states’ citizens.
Somehow, that just doesn’t seem right.
Visit votegreengov.org and take the pledge to vote green in 2010!
(crossposted on five before chaos.)
In France, when they try to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, we get this:
Workers opposed to a higher retirement age blocked roads to airports around France on Wednesday, leaving passengers in Paris dragging suitcases on foot along an emergency breakdown lane… Riot police in black body armor forced striking workers away from blocked fuel depots in western France, restoring gasoline to areas where pumps were dry after weeks of protests over the government proposal raising the age from 60 to 62.
Here in the states, as we have an ever-mounting attempt to eviscerate social programs, expand policies that favor the rich, ignore the poor and rape the environment, we get this:
This:
And, most dangerously and disturbingly, this:
Something wrong here?
A candidate for governor “shall not accept contributions totaling more than $2,000 from a single source, political committee or political party in any two-year general election cycle.” 17 V.S.A. §2805(a).
A “related campaign expenditure made on a candidate’s behalf shall be considered a contribution to the candidate on whose behalf it was made.” Vt. Stat. §2809(a). “Related campaign expenditure made on the candidate’s behalf” means “any expenditure intended to promote the election of a specific candidate … if intentionally facilitated by, solicited by or approved by the candidate or the candidate’s political committee.” 17 V.S.A. §2809(c).
“If it was illegal, we wouldn’t have done it,” Dubie campaign manager Corry Bliss
The evidence Assistant Attorney General Michael) McShane is studying includes a 260-page document filed recently by the Republican Governors Association with the Internal Revenue Service showing an in-kind contribution Sept. 22 from Friends of Brian Dubie valued at $25,500 and identified as “polling.”
Papers on file at the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office show that Friends of Brian Dubie, the name of Dubie’s campaign organization, paid $25,500 for a poll Sept. 27.
Under state campaign-finance law, political entities can spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of a candidate so long as they do not coordinate what they’re doing with the candidate’s campaign. If the activity fits the coordination definition, spending is limited to $6,000 per election cycle.
This is not, as he says a “new” issue, but rather a re-opening of the matter of routine illegal campaign contributions from the RGA to the Dubie campaign, originally broached regarding this Republican Governor’s Association advertisement in a complaint since rejected by the Attorney General. The new information was simply too much for the AG’s office to ignore – even after their irresponsible and legally reckless dismissal of the complaint initially.
Why was the original dismissal irresponsible? It’s quite simple, actually. An appropriate entity can make its own expenditures in an election season. If that entity coordinates with a specific political campaign, it becomes an agent of that campaign directly, and its work on behalf of the candidate – in kind or otherwise – is therefore a contribution. And as a contribution, it’s subject to campaign contribution limits.
Anyone paying any attention to the RGA ad at all can tell it coordinated with the Dubie campaign? Why? Because its obviously staged. Dubie is clearly being directed, in an ad produced by the RGA for upwards of $30,000. Hence, a violation, and a significant one. Not a technicality, not some legalistic interpretation, a direct and flagrant violation. The evidence after the flip.
Here’s a link to the ad. If you haven’t yet watched it, take a look. It doesn’t simply have static images or news clips of Dubie. It’s a slickly produced bit with scenes showcasing the candidate – scenes which only a moron would suggest weren’t directed, quite frankly. The RGA claims to have collected the footage used by following Dubie around at public events.
The ad was shot on AUgust 14th of this year (which is when Dubie’s Facebook page placed him at Jay Peak – Jay Peak owner Bill Stenger appears in photos from the day and is in the same clothes as in the ad). Scenes were taped at the Jay Peak Ice Haus facility and the ice rink.
Her’s the thing: Dubie’s calendar made no announcement of any public event at Jay Peak at the time. A campaign website blog post the day before the shoot refers to an upcoming stop at Jay Peak, but there was no schedule or press release indicating when – and yet somehow, the professional camera crew knew precisely when to be there.
Now let’s look atthe ad. Obviously, as these screen shots indicate, the camera was right there at Brian Dubie’s side:
He doesn’t seem all that concerned about who these guys with the camera in his face are, does he?
And this looks pretty private for a “public” event that the RGA cameras were following him around on. He’s speaking to a businessperson privately in their place of business – and apparently the two of them are the only ones in the room:
It was an insult to the Attorney General’s intelligence to suggest that, in this case, Dubie would just let some anonymous professional cameraman follow him into such a meeting if he didn’t knowexactly who they were and exactly what they were doing. The camera is positioned behind the counter for a framed shot. Clearly staged, and clearly both knew what they were doing.
Here is another from the same ad:
Still not enough for you? Then get a load of this:
Dubie’s going to sit in a small circle of kids with a professional camera right there in the circle with him, face to face with a little girl – and he’s going to stand for this if he doesn’t know exactly who they are? If that’s true, just think for a minute how creepy and reckless of him that would be.
And it’s bunk. Once again, this is no shot froma crowd at a public event. He knows who the cameraman is, and that makes it corrdination, which makes it illegal.
And Dubie – once again, has chosen to simply lie and lie and lie about it, over and over again. The guy is truly shameless.
So where did the Dems go wrong with the initial complaint? Well, first of all the AG had no business dismissing it in the first place, but the complaint made it easy. Politically, it didn’t even register among the public because the complaint and the announcement of the complaint were made on the precise day everyone knew the primary recount would be completed. This guaranteed that the story would get second billing in he papers at best, and that it wouldn’t be what anyone was talking about at the water coolers that day (or the next day, which was Saturday when no one pays attention to the news). That was a shockingly amateur mistake, and may be an example of Senator Shumlin’s legendary impulsiveness getting in his way. If they’d waited 3 days, this could’ve created solid buzz.
But also, the complaint depended on a leak from a witness, who anonymously reported that he saw Dubie at Jay Peak during this day outside a private reception with a full camera crew. The witness reports seeing Dubie leave with the camera crew amidst a fleet of SUVs. The pictures seem to corroborate this. From the facebook link:
Again – a private reception, not on the calendar, that a fleet of RGA SUVs knew to be at.
But the problem is that the witness was never going to come forward, clearly. The complaint hung its case on the witness who wasn’t going to step forward – which made the case flimsily, allowing it to be dismissed for lack of evidence. Instead, the complaint should have focused on a screen-by-screen examination (as I’m doing) which would have provided enough evidence for an investigation involving sworn depositions.
Find out who these people are and get them under oath – then we’d have all the answers quickly. No doubt not all of them can lie about it as easily and casually as our Lieutenant Governor.
Then there’s the matter of the RGA’s record in this business. They’ve been nailed for this sort of violation repeatedly: in Alaska, Texas, and even right here in Vermont in 2004!! (Hemingway, “GOP ads ordered off the air”, Burlington Free Press, 10/29/2004 – no link available) for example. These guys have a rap sheet. They are repeat offenders. That matters.
None of this even gets into the question of Jim Douglas himself, who narrates the ad and was quite active in the Dubie campaign at the time (he headlined a fundraising event on August 20th – just days after the shoot). Jim DOuglas (who also appears in the ad) seems to personify the revolving door between the RGA and the campaign.
So there was a violation, clearly. Dismissing the complaint was practically an act of malpractice by the AG’s office and refusing to meaningfully investigate and examine the evidence was an act of irresponsibility by the Vermont press.
But this new issue has reinvigorated the issue, giving the AG and the press corps a second chance – and giving the public another opportunity to find out about the illegal activities of the Dubie campaign before they go to the polls.
Every other year, Democrats in Washington County bemoan the fact that our liberal county is represented by two Republicans and one Democrat, and we doubly bemoan the seeming invulnerability of Bill Doyle, who has served in the Senate since 1969.
This year, things appear to be about to change. For one thing, after years of urging, Anthony Pollina entered the Democratic primary and is now one of the three Democratic nominees, and most observers consider him a strong favorite to pick up the seat being vacated by Phil Scott. 
But Doyle? Is he really vulnerable? Last week's campaign finance reports show a strong surge for Donny Osman, suggesting that this may the year for a Democratic sweep. The reports show that in the last reporting period Osman raised $15,140.00, more than all the other candidates combined, and overall has raised almost double what the next most successful fundraiser, Anthony Pollina, has raised. Osman has also reported the most individual contributions.
Doyle reported zero, which means he either just missed the deadline or did nothing–no contributions, no expenditures, nothing. You have to wonder: if he's not doing anything but showing up when a forum is held, but doing no materials, no media, no nothing, how seriously is he taking this contest? Long considered invincible, can we really assume that any more?
Money isn't everything, but Donny Osman has widely been considered the longest shot to pick up a Democratic seat. His success in fundraising, both in dollar amounts and in number of contributors, suggests a surge in momentum that could carry Osman to victory in November.
It's long past time to stop saying Bill Doyle is unbeatable. He's beatable, just like every other politician.
How are we going to beat him? By voting for the three Democratic candidates. By telling our friends to vote for the three Democrats. By not saying we'll accept Bill Doyle because we think he was the guy who put Ceres up on top of the dome or something. We win this the wame way we win every other race: hard work, organization, and votes.
The money helps.
I find it quite disappointing that this time of increased awareness of LGBTQ issues has been exploited to take a cheap-shot at my campaign by raising questions about my possibly being a homophobe. Anyone who’s talked to me about the issues know I am an ally to Queer people in Vermont, and have actively tried to engage with the LGBTQ community in this campaign. Unlike Brian Dubie, I requested inclusion (but was refused, due to my independent status) in the gubernatorial forum put on in part by Outright Vermont and RU12, and I broadcast the “Winter’s a Drag Ball” fundraiser for the VT People with AIDS Coalition on Radio Free Vermont (my online radio station).
Like the other candidates for Governor this election cycle, I don’t have an “ideological purity test” that people must take in order to donate to me – rather, they click the link on my website and the donation goes into the campaign’s PayPal account. As such, I find the calls for me to return the donation both odd and counterproductive; why would people who disagree so strongly with this donor want to put resources in his pocket? If he was unaware of my stance on LGBTQ rights before this and doesn’t like what I’ve said, he doesn’t have to donate. In the meantime, I will continue working hard on my campaign to bring focus to the issues our state faces that both Dubie and Shumlin refuse to acknowledge. Our communities are being smothered under the weight of an Empire that costs us a trillion dollars a year and has caused the death and displacement of millions of people. It’s time for us to stand up together to take political power back from the great corporate banks and the military-industrial complex that has bought and paid for the Federal Government, so we can begin the task of building a Vermont that works for ALL Vermonters.
Imagine… Free Vermont,
Dennis Steele
Burlington People’s Forum on Healthcare, Kids & The Economy
Local candidates for the Legislature respond to critical issues facing Vermont families
When: 6:30pm, Thursday, October 21, 2010
Where: Burlington: Main Street Landing at Lake & College, Theater building at bottom of College Street
What: More than twenty candidates have confirmed for what is the expected to be the biggest of a statewide series of 15 candidate forums being organized by Vermont Workers Center – Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign, Vermont Early Educators United – UPV/AFT, and the Vermont Center for Independent Living across the state.
The forums have three sections:
1. Healthcare: Developing a healthcare system that works for everyone
2. Early Education: Affordable childcare, access to quality early education and raising the standards in the profession.
3. The Economy: Access to jobs and the impact of cuts to public services on Vermonters.
Local members from the sponsoring organizations will present on each issue area and candidates will field questions. There will be snacks and refreshments.
Every state legislative candidate on the ballot has been invited. The Burlington forum will have Chittenden County Senate candidates and Burlington and Winooski candidates for the House of Representatives. The twelve forums have already been held (Montpelier, White River Junction, Essex, St. Albans, St. Johnsbury, Rutland, Brattleboro, Morrisville, Middlebury, Bennington, Barre and Newport). After tonight there will be a forum in Randolph (Oct. 25) and Williston (Oct. 26). For details see www.workerscenter.org/forums.
More info on Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign: www.workerscenter.org/healthcare